When A Buck And A Half Bought Something.
Rosco Gordon Jr. was born in Memphis in 1934, the youngest of eight children, growing up on Florida Street. He taught himself piano by sitting next to his sister while she practiced her lessons and before the age of eighteen had won the Talent Show at Beale Street's famed Palace Theater (the M.C. was Rufus Thomas) and was appearing on WDIA, America's first all black radio station (where B.B. King got his start around the same time). Through WDIA's owner James Mattis he was sent to see Sam C. Phillips who recorded him, leasing his sides to the Bihari Brother' RPM label out of L.A., charting for the first time with Saddled The Cow (Milked The Horse) b/w Ouch! Pretty Baby which went to #9 R&B in September of '51. Then Phillips sent two versions of the same master-- Booted, one to RPM and a slightly different alternate take to Chess in Chicago. The Chess version hit #1 R&B in February of '52 kicking off a three way tug of war which ended up with RPM securing Gordon's contract (and the services of talent scout/band leader Ike Turner who had topped the charts for Chess with the Phillips produced master Rocket 88 under the guise of Jackie Breston & his Delta Cats, Chess would get Howlin' Wolf in the same deal). Since RPM was no longer dealing with Phillips, Gordon cut sessions in Memphis at Tuff Green's house in a makeshift studio, moonlighting for Phillips who then sold the masters to Mattis' Duke label. Soon Duke was sold to Peacock's owner, Don Robey, along with Gordon, Bobby Blue Bland (who was Rosco's chauffeur, he made his debut singing on a Rosco Gordon b-side), and Johnny Ace. Confused? Don't worry you will be.
Since Rosco had two top ten hits and had seen no royalties (and the Biharis had cut themselves in for a piece of his songwriting by putting their nome-de-disque Taub on all his discs), Rosco Gordon took the short money upfront, and hence would cut a disc for whom ever was willing to put his price (usually $3-400) in his pocket. Between the years of 1951-59 he cut eleven singles for RPM (including the #2 hit No More Doggin'), eight for Duke, five for Sun (the biggest seller The Chicken appearing on both Sun and its subsidiary Flip), one for Chess (the aforementioned Booted), and four more for Vee Jay, including his biggest hit-- Just A Little Bit, featuring Classie Ballou on guitar, which would go on to become an R&B standard.
It would be a daunting and quite pointless task to attempt to put these twenty-nine discs in any sort of chronological order. In fact, much of the best material was left in Sam Phillips' vault which remained un-issued until the early 1980's when Charley Records (a rumored money laundering operation for the Corsican mob) began releasing un-issued Sun recordings in bulk. The basic Rosco Gordon sound was based around his piano pounding (known as Roscoe's rhythm), shuffling drums, guttural saxophone and often distorted guitars, over which Rosco usually delivered a wonderfully mush mouthed vocal. In addition to the above sides, some of his best were, and still are-- RPM 322- Rosco's Boogie b/w So Tired, Duke 129- Three Cent Love b/w You Figure It Out, the a-side sporting a beautiful solo from Pat Hare, the flip perhaps his most over the top vocal, RPM 358- New Orleans Wimmen b/w What You Got On Your Mind, Sun (and Flip) 227- Weeping Blues b/w Love For You Baby, Sun 257- Shoobie Oobie b/w Cheese and Crackers, Sun 305 Sally Joe b/w El Torro (the a-side an experiment in rockabilly, the flip an uncharacteristic Spanish guitar led instrumental that is rarely re-issued but I love), RPM 369- Dream On Baby b/w Trying RPM 384- Whiskey Made Me Drunk b/w Tomorrow May Be Too Late, Duke 173- Tummer Tee b/w I've Loved and I've Lost. Among the best of the un-issued sides you'll find T-Model Boogie, Decorate The Counter, Let's Get High, Bop With Me Baby, I'm Gonna Shake It, I Don't Like It and Nineteen Years Old. He was cutting excellent sides into the late 60's such as this 1964 duet with his wife Barbara which appeared on New York's Old Town label-- Gotta Keep Rollin', and this 1968 remake of Just A Little Bit which appeared on gangster Nate McCalla's Calla label.
Rosco Gordon had a colorful career. In one run in with hoodlum label owner Don Robey, Robey threatened to kick Gordon (he'd previously crushed Little Richard's testicles in an argument over royalties). Gordon patted the revolver tucked into his belt and told Robey the foot he kicked him with was the foot he would put a bullet in. He escaped with his testes in tact. He toured the south on many package shows, relocated to Shreveport, La. in the late 50's where he met his second wife Barbara (his first marriage at age 15 lasted only weeks), and kept churning out discs. He also toured the Caribbean where he was wildly popular, No More Doggin' being one of the biggest R&B hits in Jamaican history and along with Fats Domino's Be My Guest and Wilbert Harrison's Kansas City, the blueprint for the coming ska sound. He also appeared in one of the greatest rock'n'roll movies of all time-- Rock Baby Rock It (1957) along with rocker Johnny Carroll, in it Gordon serenades his pet chicken Butch (he later told me Butch, whom he toured with, was an alcoholic).
In the late 60's he relocated to Queens, New York, where he founded his own Bab-Roc label issuing a handful of singles in the 70's and then, in the style of TV's George Jefferson, opened a dry cleaners. He kept performing till the end of his life and was in fine form as late as the millennium. He recorded an album for ska pioneer Clement "Sir Coxone" Dodd in the 90's, it wasn't particularly good, but I was thrilled to meet Dodd who was selling the discs from a cardboard box at the back of one of Gordon's gigs in Brooklyn. In his final days Rosco Gordon attempted to patch things up with Sam Phillips who took great offense to Rosco's disregard of exclusive contracts (even though Phillips had operated much the same way at the dawn of his career) and still harbored a grudge. In 2000 Rosco booked time at Sun Studio and asked Sam to produce a few sides. Rosco recorded an album at Sun but Phillips never showed. It was issued as Memphis, Tennessee later that year. In 2002 Rosco Gordon died of a heart attack in Rego Park, Queens, New York. Perhaps if life on earth continues for long enough, someone will compile a re-issue of his complete Duke sides.

15 comments:

Never found to many of his 45s here in Rochester, NY but I did manage to find one on Jada: "(Do The )Jesse James" which my band in the 80s, Don't Call Me Junior" managed to cover pretty well. It went with my big purge in 1993 and I've been searching the webs in vain for it the last five years. I'd love to find it. If I'm not mistaken JADA was a Jamaican Label that I've seen talked about here and there. Have to Google it and see what I can find. If you haven't heard the 'Jesse James', it's a dance (...do the, do the , do the do the Jesse James", followed by a classic Rosco piano lick then pause. I assumed to do the dance as the lead singer on that one, striking a gunfighter pose with a fake pistol hand shape and shot at the crowd. I figure Rosco would have approved.Have you ever heard or seen that one? I've never seen it even mentioned any where connected to him. I actually got excited seeing your post and though for sure The Hound will have it or even mention his connection with the label.

I believe it was also issued on Soma (not the Soma from Minneapolis), the only release on the label.There were four releases on Jomada, all in '66. Both labels were NYC based, probably they were the same label.

Jim: I don't remember if you were there this night but one of the greatest shows I ever saw was at Dan Lynch's on 2nd Avenue. There was Jimmy Spruill, Larry Dale, Bob Gaddy and Roscoe Gordon all on the same bill for something like $5! I'll never forget Roscoe opened his set with Booted!!!! What a night! -Barry Soltz

"Don't hold your breath looking for Universal -- who now own Duke/Peacock -- to reissue anything of value these days. Maybe a Brit label will cut a deal sometime, but I've been real disapointed."

Universal is uselless but most of Gordon's best sides fall into the public domain in EU, Proper could easily do it (they did a Rosco Gordon set made up of a hodgepodge of sides from four labels, most of which had been re-issued before) as could Classics or one of those other dodgy Euro re-issue labels.

"The (Un)Official CD T-Model Boogie contains both sides of 6 of the 8 Duke 45s. Only 114 and 320 are missing, strangely as the Dilly Bop is one of the easier Dukes to find."

A couple of those tracks sound like alternate takes, I think the Duke sides on that CD were culled from the old Redita Rosco Gordon bootleg (can't remember the title, it had a blue and white cover), at least that's what it sounds like to my ears, but I'm to lazy to go downstairs and dig out the bootleg from the vinyl in the basement.

James "The Hound" Marshall

James "The Hound" Marshall is a former WFMU deejay (1985-97), music writer and bar owner (Lakeside Lounge NYC, Circle Bar, New Orleans). He has contributed articles to dozens of mags and newspapers including the Village Voice, NY Times, LA Weekly, Spin, Penthouse Forum, New York Rocker, Newark Star-Ledger, East Village Eye, High Times (columnist for ten years), Kicks, and worse.
He also wrote liner notes to CD re-issues by Larry Williams and Johnny Guitar Watson, Ray Price, Eric Ambel, Challenge Records,The Okeh R&B Box, and others as well as compiling three volumes of the early rock'n'roll compilations Jook Block Busters (Valmor). At age 17 he edited two issues of the punk fanzine New Order (1977) He was born in Paterson, N.J. and raised mostly in Broward County, Florida, moving to New York City at age 18 in 1977 and has resided there ever since except for 1998-2002 when he split his time between New York and New Orleans. He has been acclaimed in print in the New York Times, Village Voice, Time Out New York, New York Magazine,The Manhattan Catalogue, and other publications you wouldn't be caught dead reading.